Photo by Lucky Bronson
When Ryan Reynolds (Hal Jordan) fielded a question about the summer of being flooded by super heroes, he reacted, “Are you saying that this crowd hates being bombarded with super hero movies? Are you guys holding out for Black Swan 2?” That’s a taste of how Reynolds charmed the crowd at the Green Lantern panel this past friday at WonderCon. Master scribe and DC Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns moderated the panel and Reynolds was joined by co-star Blake Lively (Carol Ferris) and fielded questions from the crowd.
Naturally, most of the questions were directed to Reynolds who talked about what drew him to the role. “It’s an origin story, and what I loved about the script is that it didn’t start in the third act which a lot of origin stories do… but this starts at the beginning. Hal’s cocky, arrogant, he’s reckless and is given an unbelievable extraordinary gift, and in receiving this gift he finds humility and a real purpose.” Asked what was it that Green Lantern does above other genre roles have is that “it captures your imagination like nothing else could.” Reynolds also said that he feels that he’s reached his quota of super hero roles. Johns suggested that he could play Flash in a solo film, but then do Flash and Green Lantern film where he could play both roles, which got a lot of laughter (and terror) from the crowd.
Photo by Lucky Bronson
For those worrying about how much leeway the filmmakers and actors would take with Green Lantern, Lively called Johns “the voice of all the fans,” and an ever-present guide to ensure the movie keeps the comics in spirit. Lively said she’d be thrilled to come back for a sequel where she would play Star Sapphire and beat Reynolds up but she would prefer the costume to have a little bit more material to it, and by a little she means a lot. The men in the audience responded to that comment with a chorus of boos.
Reynolds confirmed that he was given freedom to improv and adlib but stressed that Jordan is not funny, and that what he does is more dry wit. “You really want to safeguard the character first and foremost. Sometimes it’s too easy to throw in this cocksure line here, but you want to make sure that you’re still playing Hal Jordan. We made sure that it was more wit. He’s not a comedian, and he’s not a funny guy but he can throw a line around pretty well.You want a few moments of levity.” Reynolds brought up his analogy of Jordan being a hybrid of Chuck Yeager and Han Solo to explain what he thought of while playing the lead role.
Photo by Lucky Bronson
Both actors are far removed from principal photography, Reynolds has been in Africa filming Safe House while Lively is filming Hick. Their responses were what one woud expect. But this was the first time that had seen the footage this far complete. The excitement on their faces were shared by the raucous crowd and so they will walk away knowing that this focus group will be first in line June 17. They’re all saying the right things, Geoff Johns included, but we’ll see if it all comes together when the movie hits theaters this summer.
